Title: Surplus of service-based business models – the integration of multiple perspectives for assessing win-win potentials

Authors: Christian Lerch, Ute Weissfloch, Steffen Kinkel

Addresses: Fraunhofer Institute Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Breslauer Strasse 48, Karlsruhe 76139, Germany. ' Fraunhofer Institute Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Breslauer Strasse 48, Karlsruhe 76139, Germany. ' Fraunhofer Institute Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Breslauer Strasse 48, Karlsruhe 76139, Germany

Abstract: Service-based business models are becoming increasingly more important for the capital goods industry. However, manufacturers of plants still hesitate to offer these customer-oriented solutions to their clients, due to existing uncertainties resulting from economic risks. Certainly these business models do not only hold hazards, but unexplored potentials too. This paper shows how to use life cycle costing for the evaluation of service-based business models by presenting an approach, which can be used as management accounting instrument, identifying win-win potentials for the manufacturers and their clients. The practical ability of this method will be shown by means of three case studies taken from the robot industry.

Keywords: business models; LCC; life cycle costing; capital goods industry; case studies; win-win potential; service-based models; management accounting; robotics industry; robots.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOI.2010.037005

International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics, 2010 Vol.5 No.4, pp.400 - 417

Published online: 20 Nov 2010 *

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